” ‘Yes’ To Us” (Romans 15: 13, HCSB) by Carley Evans

We hope, says Paul, “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Without Him, we have no hope; we have no peace; we have no joy. God — the Holy Spirit — is the seal who is “a down payment in our hearts” guaranteeing our inheritance. (2 Corinthians 1: 22) “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is preached among you by [Paul] and Silvanus and Timothy does not become ‘Yes and No’; on the contrary, a final ‘Yes’ comes in Him. For every one of God’s promises is ‘Yes’ in Him.” (2 Corinthians 1: 19 – 20)

Therefore, “[we] stand by faith.” (2 Corinthians 2: 1) As we believe in Christ, we find our joy and peace in Him, in knowing that God says, “Yes’ to us rather than ‘No!” God the Father is able to say ‘Yes’ to us because His Son dies for us, washes us clean of our sin, and deposits in us His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes us holy, setting us apart for God the Father. He enables us to do the good works God prepares in advance for us. “For it is God who is working in [us], enabling [us] both to desire and to work out His good purpose.” (Philippians 2: 13)

Thank God it is Him doing it… therefore we cannot err as long as we leave it in His hands. We don’t have to sin… G0d is not going to will us to go against His will… therefore we can be sure of pleasing Him because all we do is His will anyway! Praise God! that is wonderful!

You continue to oppose yourself… You say all these great things about the simplicity of it all and How God wills and does it, how we can trust in His righteousness, in Christ fulfillment of the law, but with Christ living in you, you can’t fulfill the law yourself on a consistent basis? Even though you are just called to obey what He tells you and inspires you and empowers you to do?
Yet if I say you choose or desire to sin you’ll say you don’t, but then where does it come from and where does the struggle come from? What causes the difficulty? How can it be easy for some and hard for others?
The Word of God says God is able to make you stand (Romans 14:4); how then do you fall down?
Do you really believe that you are justified in sinning? Sin is the very thing that you repented of in the first place isn’t it?
How can you have grace or divine favor and sin, cause divine displeasure at the same time?
How can Jesus sacrifice cover your sin, when Jesus came and taught you how to live without sin and His very purpose was to destroy the works of the devil which you still are bound up in?
I worry that you are well deceived and in eminent danger of eternal destruction, though you seem to have some zeal.

Carley, I’m not judging, I don’t see what you’re doing, you’re admitting to what you’re doing and telling me. I can only go by your confession and your words, therefore there is not judgment, but the Word of God is the judge and jury in this case.

By your own words, not by what I say or what I think, but by your own words in comparison to what the Word of God says.

Now I am qualified to judge. The Word of God tells me that Christians shall judge the world and how is it that we’re not able to judge the lest things?

Also Paul judged the matter in 1 Corinthians 5.

Jesus said, by their fruits you shall know them… therefore we see that we do have a basis for judgment.

Nevertheless we are not to go around finding fault with our brothers and sisters, but if a brother be overtaken in a fault, we need to be able to recognize it and we that are spiritual must be able to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering ourselves lest we also be tempted (ref. Galatians 6:1).

I don’t think you’ve done anything, so to speak you’re the one who says things like: When I sin I ask God to forgive me and such as that. I have never known anything you done to be sinful, a misunderstanding of the scriptures is not necessarily sinful, unless you do it willfully, which I don’t sense you do, but it is a dangerous thing because we are living in a time of gross deception.

The Word of God lets us know that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived. 2 Timothy 3:13. Therefore I fear for your soul in that.

It is not okay just to have different interpretations of the scriptures. If you are wrong, which the Word of God indicates you are, you are in danger of eternal damnation.

Whereas, if I’m wrong, which is not indicated in the Word of God, then I only in danger of pleasing God the more.

And to answer your ? – NO, I do not believe anyone is justified in sinning. I believe that Jesus died so that God’s wrath towards sin would fall upon Jesus and not upon us. This is the GOOD NEWS of the new covenant. To not see this is strange to me. This is Christianity at the core.

We are saved by grace, by mercy, by love, by forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ, who washes us clean and seals us with His Holy Spirit.

We are saved by grace, and grace alone. Grace is necessary because we do sin, but we are not to sin so that grace will abound. That is abhorrent.

We are to flee sin. Nothing that I have said or written contradicts this truth.

However, when we fail; God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God does this because of His Son’s sacrificial death; not because of anything we do or try not to do.

Faith without works may be dead, but works without faith are just an enormous waste of time!

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